Review: Horror comedy Get Out is a cult classic in the making

Matt Adcock

“Fair skin was in favour for the last couple of thousand years. Now the pendulum has swung back. Black is in fashion!”

Get ready for Get Out, the first great comic horror thriller of 2017 – a startlingly vibrant and shocking cinematic opus concerning racial divides which doesn’t skimp on pure terror.

Meet Chris (Daniel ‘Sicario’ Kaluuya), a young guy in love. He goes to meet the parents of his girlfriend, Rose (Allison ‘Girls’ Williams), despite being nervous that they might not welcome him due to his being black and Rose white. She assures him that all will be well because her dad, Dean (Bradley ‘The Cabin In The Woods’ Whitford), "would have voted for Obama for a third term if he could have".

What she fails to mention is that her family actually have some very unusual and upsetting views on race relations. Chris it seems will get to experience these family values first hand after Rose’s mother Missy (Catherine ‘Being John Malkovich’ Keener) hypnotises him in order to help him stop smoking. Don’t worry too much about the plot, this is a film that builds up slowly with a tangible sense of voodoo menace which ratchets up the tension until it finally all explodes in bloody violence.

With Get Out, first-time director Jordan Peele creates a quality addition to the horror genre – one that is both a biting social satire and a freaky shock fest which pays off big time by the climax. In an age when the threat of white supremacist mindsets is suddenly a horribly relevant again, Get Out sneakily tears down racist ideals and has lots of fun in the process. Peele’s debut marks him out as a director to watch.

The audience I caught this with were screaming one moment and cheering the next. This is a film that is worth catching on a big screen as witnessing and being part of the communal suspense build-up throughout is a lot of fun.